Profile
Marité Villanueva has more than 18 years of experience practicing labor law. She advises national and multinational clients in labor lawsuits, layoffs, and the development of strategic plans regarding labor risks, negotiations with unions, and recent labor reforms. She has deep experience in labor structures and in creating efficiencies in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) projects, team integration, and human resources process design.
Marité also has worked in the implementation of corporate culture schemes, payroll, staff management software, as well as the implementation of labor relations through feedback, disciplinary processes, and settlement agreements.
Concentrations
- Due diligence to identify risks from a labor perspective and execute correction plans
- Human resources management and corporate practice
- Large and high-risk layoffs
- Collective bargaining negotiations
- Labor regulation compliance
- Labor-Management Relations
Capabilities
Experience
Representations:
- Advises companies in the development of best practices and the identification of labor risks through due diligence in various acquisitions, as well as in the design and execution of post-closing compliance plans.
- Represented several renewable energy parks in executing the restructuring of clients to comply with regulations on outsourcing of personnel, as well as in negotiations with the asset manager, conversion of internal companies into employers, and management of the work teams.
- Advises transnational companies in the execution of internal investigations to identify possible cases of labor non-compliance, guiding the client on strategy design to avoid information leakage, 1-1 interviews, document analysis, and creation of an action plan.
- Advised a leading company in the education sector on risk identification, design, and implementation of several restructuring processes in the management of teachers in educational institutions with both traditional and digital platform modalities.
- Provides support to clients in the day-to-day work management of personnel.
- Advises multiple companies in the execution and follow-up of labor lawsuits, as well as in the design of strategies for the employer’s defense in several states of Mexico.
In-house Experience:
- Executed transfer of 2,000 employees due to employer substitution in acquisition project.°
- Executed team rearrangements under budget and without drawbacks in acquisition project.°
- Discovered liabilities in M&A due diligence and designed and executed contingency plan, attaining 70% in savings.°
- Designed and launched corporate culture, including the definition of its objectives, values and principles.°
- Built HR department and processes to manage 5,000 employees.°
- Accomplished several collective bargaining agreements with unions.°
°The above representations were handled by Ms. Villanueva prior to her joining Greenberg Traurig, S.C.
- Head of HR and Labor Matters, Lottus Education, 2019-2021
- Labor Counsel, Lottus Education, 2015-2019
- Attorney, Local Mexican Law Firm, Attorney, 2008-2018
- Debt Collection, Hospital San José de Querétaro, 2004-2006
Recognition & Leadership
- Listed, The Legal 500 Latin America Guide, “Latin America: Mexico – Labour and Employment,” 2023-2024
Credentials
- Degree in Law, Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Querétaro, Mexico 2011
- Mexico
- Spanish, Native
- English, Fluent